


Vivid

by Sami_Fire



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5956288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sami_Fire/pseuds/Sami_Fire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takumi has a terrible, terrible nightmare. Contains some disturbing imagery and intensely emotional situations (plus some dream logic); tread carefully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vivid

Takumi stood in the snowy expanse, watching a child frolic in the snow as he cradled another one in his arms.

Neither child had a name, but he was very sure that they were both his sons. Smiling, he watched the older child play, throwing snow everywhere.

He looked down at the younger son in his arms, and what he saw he was not prepared for.

The child was a grotesque doll, made of a porcelain-like material. The hair was made of straw, and the eyes were glassy and shattered. There was a large crack in the face of the doll, and several smaller cracks throughout. Gasping, he nearly dropped the doll, but caught himself before he did.

This was his son, after all, no matter how deformed or broken he was.

When he looked back up, the older son had vanished completely. Where could he have gone? Feeling a surge of panic, Takumi ran forward through the snow, looking for any sign of another person. Soon, he found himself in front of a house. This house had a box on the doorstep, and he felt compelled to open it.

Inside was his other child, covered in blood, veritably dismembered. This time, he did drop the doll-child, who seemed to vanish before hitting the ground. He could not avert his eyes from the terrible sight; instead, he dropped to his knees and let out a howl of pain and fury, his vision blurring with hot tears.

Who had done this to his son? Why?

“Takumi.”

Corrin’s voice pulled him away from the body at last, and she seemed to appear right beside him. She was in a simple dress, and heavily pregnant from the looks of it.

“Corrin, someone, someone has…” Takumi felt his voice fade unnaturally as he spoke, as though it was being suppressed by an outside force. He moved his lips, tried to scream, and then he realized: _I can’t speak._

Corrin came up to him slowly, touching his face. He wanted to reach up, to take her hand, to explain to her that something terrible had happened, but now he had lost the ability to move as well. All he could do was stare, his gaze occasionally going to the box on the doorstep.

A pain that was both dull and sharp tore through him. It was sharp, and he could feel it, but it was as though the pain had been numbed. It felt like a million of these sharp impacts were going through him, and the vision of Corrin before him began to distort. Soon, he became aware of a bizarre happening: Corrin was tearing him apart. She was reaching through him as if his body were made of clay, pulling and pushing and sculpting whatever it was she had her hands around.

He wanted to tell her to stop. His lips failed to move. All he could do was stare at the blurred, shifting face of his beloved as she put her hands through him.

In a sudden fluid movement, his hand swung up, and he found he could do the same to her. She stopped moving as soon as his hand went through her, and then she dropped to the floor. Then, as though it was injected there by some dream force, he thought: _I have to stop them._ He did not know who “them” referred to, but he knew that whoever they were, they had to die. He had to tear them apart, just as he had done to Corrin.

He walked into the house, where the scenery changed to a large room. So many faceless people stood there, and he surged forth, tearing them apart and watching them disappear. As he ripped through the horde, he thought he saw flickers of familiar things: Ryoma’s headpiece, one of Hinoka’s pegasus’s wings, Sakura’s festal. In the haze of the dream, these things held no significance for him, and they slipped away as the crowd thinned.

Soon, he was alone, soaked in the same blood that covered the walls. Before him, he saw the items he had glimpsed before: the headpiece, a Pegasus feather, a festal. Had he killed the rest of his family in this room?

A great grief and an unbearable pain surged through him, and with a soundless scream, everything faded away.

* * *

  

“Takumi?”

Corrin’s voice broke through the dream haze, though Takumi was not fully free of the dream.

“Takumi!”

Takumi yelped and flailed as his consciousness fully returned, panting heavily, keenly aware that he had been sweating. “No, no…” he said to himself, his having regained his ability to speak barely comforting at all.

“Takumi, what happened? Did you have another bad dream?” Corrin was unsure if she should come closer or not, lest he accidentally hit her from the shock of emerging from another nightmare.

Takumi nodded, then shook his head. “I… it was terrible. Even worse than usual. I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.”

“Would you be willing to tell me about it?” Corrin did come closer this time, resting a hand on Takumi’s clammy chest.

“No. I never want to have anything like that happen again. Even retelling it would be too much.” Takumi reached up to take Corrin’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “Corrin, when or if we have children… please, watch over them. I… after what I saw, I don’t think…”

“You don’t think what? You’re squeezing a bit too hard,” Corrin said.

“I don’t think I could be a good father.” Takumi’s breath hitched, and he closed his eyes, hoping that he would not see his dead son or the doll-child.

“You’re wrong,” Corrin said with a surprising quickness. “I know you can be a good father. It was just a bad dream, even if it was worse than all your other bad dreams. I have faith in you, no matter what. Please… I wish you could have even a drop of the faith I have in you in yourself.”

“Corrin…” Takumi sniffed despite trying his hardest not to.

“Don’t cry,” Corrin said, reaching up to wipe the tears away. “I love you. I will take care of you and our future children. Don’t forget that.”

Takumi sighed and squeezed Corrin’s hand again. “You… you make things hard for me sometimes, you know that? But… I don’t mind. It’s worth it.”

“I’m glad.” Corrin pulled Takumi closer. “Do you want me to do anything to help you go back to sleep?”

There was a pause as Takumi thought it over. “Just stay here with me. Hold me till I fall asleep.”

“I will.” Corrin gave Takumi a squeeze and rested her head on his chest. She tried her hardest to stay up till she was sure she heard his snoring, but in the end, they faded out around the same time.

Takumi had no further dreams that night, and when he woke up in the morning, he found Corrin still wrapped around him. Smiling, he stroked her head, and dozed off as the sun rose.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this was hard. It got very intense for me, so I actually had to stop and take a break towards the end... well, I hope you enjoyed it anyway!


End file.
